System Mastery 10 – Exalted

Seriously, just look at that. It’s ridiculous. That’s the cover of one of the supplements. They wanted you to buy that book. They didn’t want you to hide it a featureless brown paper bag and try to smokescreen the purchase with a Snickers bar and one of those Bic lighters. Anyway, this week we read and discussed Exalted, the White Wolf anime demigod simulator. Can you wear a maxi pad instead of any sort of pants in this game? Probably!

2 responses to “System Mastery 10 – Exalted”

Fun story, a coworker of my mom’s found out I liked Exalted and bought me that book as a birthday present back in high school. I had to open it and show my parents the cover; it was mortifying, but at least it was a present, right?

You always bring up the mentor thing. I’m pretty sure that that particular thing was first edition only, the version I’ve seen in second (maybe errata?) was that high levels in mentor means that you will have expectations placed upon you based on your being the apprentice of that particular mentor. They’re -the best-, and nothing less than being absolutely amazing is good enough for one of their students. though, again, this might be that when they wrote the errata they realized that that shit is dumb and fixed it. A better example is Familar. Which is so -notoriously terrible- that the fucking designers just straight up said it was a mistake in its entirety because they’re just… absolutely terrible. Also the command thing is less ‘everyone hates you’ and more ‘the realm knows where you live and they are constantly gunning for LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE’S SHIT.’ The Dragon-Blooded version of that trait is just -literally better- because the realm isn’t actively trying to murder you because -you are the realm-.

Also sorcery is dope as hell for what it is, since they’re -generally- less combat magic and more ‘I feel like making this group of people/fortress/entire goddamn region no longer exist/be awesome as hell/exist REALLY HARD AND IN YOUR FACE. Also they -absolutely break the game- because a competent sorcerer can do shit like be thirteen people, make literally anyone with less Essence than them into a willing love-slave, and declare someone an enemy of creation, which results in -literally everything hating them immediately- also that brainwash thing and declaring someone an enemy of creation? those aren’t attacks. you can’t apply evasion or parry charms to those. they’re just -shit that happens-.

Vis a Vis difficulties: 5 is impossible for mortals… you’re Solars. you’re expected to do shit that’s impossible for -literal gods- on a daily basis. The only things that are supposed to require you expend excessive effort are -physically impossible or unable to be even conceived of-

Also I’m disappointed that you didn’t mention that Mount Meru is -literally a dragon-, which is probably my favorite part of that. Plus… Dragon Blooded are not as weak as you think they are, considering that even the five you normally run into can basically turn each other into absolute bullshit without ongoing mote cost, generally have way more support than you, and have -goddamn mecha-. if you’re walking through deebees your ST is just… -bad-.

Also holy shit yes Infernals corebook is garbage. Thank Sundad for houserules and the Broken-Winged Crane.

also the robot exalts are called Alchemicals, not Autocthonian exalts.

Also Three-die stunts aren’t supposed to be ST fiat in any game I’ve played, they’re generally ‘the entire table agrees that was dope as hell’.

I fucking love you guys, I love this game, even if it requires some fucking dedication to make everything balance itself out. It’s kinda like Rifts in that some parts of it are goofy and dumb as hell, but with the right level of telling those bits to go fuck off you can make it work awesomely.